Friday, October 9, 2009

QUIETLY AND DILIGENTLY, IN LOCATIONSall over the world, an organization is working to bring the means ofproduction to the masses. Their motto. "Wealth without money."implies a political motivation, though they're not socialists, Marxists,or communists --- they're hardware hackers.

Adrian Bowyer, at Bath University in the U.K., leads the RepRapproject (reprap.org) to develop a design for a very specialrapid-prototyping machine. The device treads a fine line betweenbeing capable enough to produce complex goods, and simpleenough in design that it can produce its own parts. The result isa self-replicating machine, with the potential to spread acrossthe planet at an exponential rate.